Most of my polar voy­a­ges in 2014 have alre­a­dy been ful­ly boo­ked for quite some time. If you still want to join in 2014, then you have got the pos­si­bi­li­ty to do so in Sep­tem­ber, focus­sing on natu­ral histo­ry, pho­to­gra­phy and hiking with SV Anti­gua. Click here for more info (Ger­man site, as the trip is Ger­man spea­king).

Now I have also got most of the dates for 2015 fixed. Detail­ed infor­ma­ti­on is yet to come, but as most voy­a­ges will, accor­ding to expe­ri­ence, be ful­ly boo­ked at an ear­ly stage, I do recom­mend to get in touch in case you are inte­res­ted.

The fol­lo­wing trips in Spits­ber­gen are plan­ned for 2015 (they will be Ger­man spea­king, so you should speak a bit if you want to join, but of cour­se it does not have to be your first lan­guage):

• Around Spits­ber­gen with SV Anti­gua, June 30- July 17, 2015.
• Advan­ced Spits­ber­gen: Expe­di­ti­on with SY Arc­ti­ca II, July 19- August 06, 2015.
• West and North Spits­ber­gen with Anti­gua, focus­sing on gla­ciers: Sep­tem­ber 15-25, 2015. Have a look at the pho­tos of a simi­lar voya­ge in 2012.!

Jan May­en: our expe­di­ti­ons to Jan May­en are ful­ly boo­ked more quick­ly than we can adver­ti­se them pro­per­ly, which is quite ama­zing! This is the case both for 2014 and 2015, so if you are inte­res­ted to spend a week on Jan May­en, then we are now loo­king at 2016 and you should get in touch soo­ner rather than later.

We are also plan­ning ano­ther trip into Score­s­by­sund (east Green­land) with SV Ópal, simi­lar to 2013, so have a look at the pho­tos (trip 1 and trip 2) to get an impres­si­on. The plan­ning for ano­ther trip to East Green­land in 2015 is curr­ent­ly still in an ear­lier pha­se.

In Febru­ary, the avera­ge tem­pe­ra­tu­re was no less than 15 degrees abo­ve the long-term avera­ge. For weeks, the tem­pe­ra­tures have oscil­la­ted around free­zing. Only the first 10 days, the air was at -10°C or below. Sin­ce then, tem­pe­ra­te Atlan­tic air­mas­ses have moved north to push col­der, arc­tic air­mas­ses fur­ther away.

Meteo­ro­lo­gists have cal­cu­la­ted the avera­ge tem­pe­ra­tu­re of Febru­ary in Lon­gye­ar­by­en to be -1.2°C. The long-term avera­ge for Febru­ary is -16.2°C.

It can be assu­med that it is not only the air that is curr­ent­ly war­mer than it used to be, but also the waters around Spits­ber­gen. The ice situa­ti­on seems to con­firm this, as lar­ge parts of the waters east and north of Spits­ber­gen are far more open than they usual­ly are at this time of the year. Even inner bran­ches of the fjords such as Tem­pel­fjord and Bil­lefjord have not yet real­ly fro­zen over so far.

The cur­rent wea­ther fore­cast for the next 10 days does at least not show any tem­pe­ra­tures abo­ve free­zing. While it was not far below zero in Lon­gye­ar­by­en over the weekend, tem­pe­ra­tures at the east coast were said to be near -30°C.

Also in Nor­way, the win­ter has, so far, been far mil­der than it usual­ly is.

Source: NRK